International Cat Speculators Since 2006

Posts tagged ‘Family First’

Family First NZ is hugely concerned by comments made by the author of the bill to redefine marriage regarding integrated schools who receive government funding and may disagree with altering the definition of marriage.

In comments to a gay website about Northland’s Pompallier Catholic College and comments made by the Principal opposing the bill, Labour MP Louisa Wall said ‘I don’t think in these days of integrated schools and given this school does receive some form of state funding, that advocating against equality and non-discrimination and supporting discriminatory laws is what schools and a principal should be promoting.’

“This seems to be a veiled but real threat to integrated schools, many who are faith-based and would oppose same-sex marriage on religious grounds, that they will either have to promote same-sex marriage against their own beliefs or be threatened with losing funding,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

It speaks volumes about those promoting this law, that they are so bold in making such threatening statements.

But, lest we remember, almost the entire country stood up and rejected the last item on the liberal agenda, and that did a fat lot of good. So they know full well that they can be say things like this and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.

(My position is clear: legislating for same-sex marriage is like legislating for dry water. You can call something whatever you like and change whatever laws you like, but it doesn’t change the facts on the ground.

This “issue” is not something that I find worth my time debating, though the stupidity does tend to drag me in from time to time!

The biggest concern at this point is what the effects of this contradiction between law and reality will have – i.e. what laws will they foist on us once they realise people don’t recognise same sex unions as marriages. Somehow, I don’t think any of the proposed “answers” will ever involve less state power.)

Putting your home address on an authorisation statement is risky, and it was always intended to be intimidating. We all know the types that do this sort of thing.

From Family First’s email:

Last Saturday night, four women dressed in black came to our family home in South Auckland and placed almost 1,000 plastic knives into our front lawn. They also taped an intimidating note on our front door relating to the knives (anonymous of course!).

I am very thankful that my family and I were in Tauranga over the weekend and my children didn’t stumble across the display. The police have taken away evidence and are testing for fingerprints etc. and our neighbours kindly helped removed the offending items. My neighbours are wondering what sort of friends I have!!

Unfortunately, under the Electoral Finance Act, any material put out by Family First has to have an ‘Authorisation Statement’ which contains the residential address of the person authorising the material. Therefore, because of our VALUE YOUR VOTE campaign, it is fairly easy to figure out where we live.

BUT the need to publish important information relating to these family issues and the upcoming General Election is too important to stay silent on. (We are aware of other groups who have had second thoughts on speaking up because of this requirement.)

I knew that ‘speaking out’ would draw criticism and labelling (and we have been certainly called a number of ‘colourful’ terms!) rather than debating the actual issues being raised – but I always hoped that the debate wouldn’t hit home as it has.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THIS – we will not be silenced . Whenever we speak up on issues like marriage, the breakdown of family, the anti-smacking law and the role of parents, the pornography industry and public nudity, prostitution, pro-life issues including abortion and euthanasia, and many other topics that families are concerned about, we are going to make enemies . I’m the first to admit that we don’t always get it right, but we cannot afford to walk away from the opportunity we have to speak up from a family perspective on these crucial issues.

Let us hope and pray that those who performed this act of wanton intimidation are found and held accountable.

Bob speaks for me and my wife, and thousands of others. My ability (and those of my fellow Family First supporters) to support the issues that I want raised has been severely curtailed by the severe spending limits that Bob, my representative, is placed under. It directly attacks my freedom of speech, and is now being used to threaten Bob’s family.

This is what our government has resorted to, in it’s quest into retain power – opening up it’s critics to direct attacks and threats.

Update: Ah, the good old “we were joking” excuse that always seems to follow bad PR for some people.

I see you didn’t take our little prank as it was intended,
just as a little bit of harmless fun, just some plastic and
spare time, I hope you could see the funny side of it…

Never-the-less were truly sorry if this has in anyway, offended
or scared you emotionally physically or mentally…

Bob McCoskrie has a tendency to not be shy when he needs money. But you’ve got to admit, this latest cause is like selling ice drinks on a hot day.

CAN YOU HELP US

‘SLEDGEHAMMER’

A FEW MYTHS

Myth #1 : There have been no prosecutions under the new anti-smacking lawFALSE

Myth #2 : The anti-smacking law has not resulted in good parents being investigated and interrogated by the police or CYFFALSE

We have evidence of a number of examples that expose these myths, including:

* a father separated from his 2 kids for 6 months by CYF because of malicious claims by mother that he had smacked them – CYF eventually reallowed access but only due to a strong supporter who knew the system* a father prosecuted and convicted because of pushing the upper arm of his daughter 2-3 times and demanding she listen to her mother
* a grandfather prosecuted and convicted because of tipping his defiant grandson out of a bean bag-type chair to get him moving
* a father dragged through the court process only to turn up to the court case and the police to admit they had no evidence
* a stepfather who physically restrained the arms of his stepdaughter being interrogated for 2 hours almost 7 months after the incident, and 6 months later still not knowing the outcome
* a CYFS Community Panel Board member telling Family First “I can say without a doubt, that in my time I have seen a small but a definite increase in ‘good’ parents being investigated by our CYFS case workers – up to 5% of our cases. Any child who mentions to a school teacher that they have been smacked or touched in any physical way is brought under investigation and their names are indelibly logged onto our data base as a potential ‘abuser’ . I really feel sorry for these ‘good parents’ because of the fear that we as an organisation now engendering upon their parenting practise. Sadly good parents are being lumped in together with the really bad ones.”

The organisers originally had a shortfall of 18,027 signatures after the audit of the original 324,216 signatures submitted in April. However, since then, more than 50,000 signatures have been collected. These will be submitted before the deadline of the end of the month.

Almost half of parents with children under 12 have smacked them in the past year, a survey has found.

The Family First lobby group commissioned a market research company to poll New Zealanders on their attitudes to parental discipline since the anti-smacking law came into effect in June last year.

It found that 48 per cent of respondents with children under 12 had smacked their child after the law change.

Now, there’s one mistake here. this is not a survey of those who have smacked, it’s a survey of those who would admit that to a pollster. Let’s face it, would you admit to (what the law now says is) abusing your children to a person on the telephone? Because of that, I’d call these numbers a minimum.

“For a new law to be ignored by so many people who are willing to risk a police or [Child, Youth and Family] investigation indicates just how out of step with reality this law is.”

Again, I disagree with Bob. Sue Bradford is up and front the person to thank for this after she told us all so many, many times that good parents had nothing to fear.

Ms Bradford said yesterday that the new poll indicated an improvement in attitudes, as a year on only 48 per cent admitted having done so.

“We are well on the way; that is a great result,” she said.

On the way to what? After all, Sue Bradford herself said…

this is an anti-beating, anti-child-violence bill, not a piece of legislation that will see tens of thousands of well-meaning parents dragged into court for the occasional light smack…

Why would any well-meaning parent stop giving the occasional light smack when the woman behind the bill says that’s fine? So where exactly are we supposed to be “on the way” to?

Men, people aged more than 60 and those from rural areas opposed it most strongly.

He said only 19 per cent strongly or somewhat agreed with the new law despite the police discretion clause, down from 29 per cent last year.

If The Green’s recent form is anything to go by, expect a law to go through shortly “readjusting the inequality of voting between rural and urban areas”. ;P

I most love this bit thought!

Mr McCoskrie said 85 per cent of those polled – up from 82 per cent a year ago – agreed the new law should be changed to state that parents who gave their children a smack that was reasonable and for the purpose of correction were not breaking the law.

Because that would be a repeal of the law! 😀

Children’s Commissioner Cindy Kiro said yesterday that she had not seen the survey.

Dr Kiro said people needed to learn and be encouraged in positive parenting.

Methinks someone is feeling the heat in a big way. As Lindsay points out…

That’s an interesting attitude in itself. Very. It reveals that the Children’s Commissioner does not care for discussion or debate when it comes to what she wants to do. To those of us who would put up objections, the key message is actually, “you are wasting your energy”. Presumably we will be wasting our energy opposing any other of her initiatives like mandatory screening of every baby’s home life.

I wonder how many people are on a plane to Australia because Kiro, Bradford and Clark are not?

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This Blog is the long time home of a blogger known across the internet as ScrubOne (That's Scrub One not Scru Bone). Where this handle has not been available, he is known as ScrubOneHD (HD for Half Done).

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